


see how she shines for you

by jemmasimmmons



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Blood/Injury, F/M, Fitzsimmons sacrificing themselves for the other in every universe, Tangled AU, possible triggers for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4507671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She shouldn't believe in fairytales."</p>
<p>A Fitzsimmons Tangled AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	see how she shines for you

**Author's Note:**

> This has been something I've been wanting to write for a while and I will be honest when I say it was harder than I thought it would be! I ended up changing a few things from what I originally intended to put in but I hope you enjoy anyway. 
> 
> The end scene is a little wishful thinking on Josie (everhtorne) and I's part for the new Tangled TV series Disney is planning for next year, so look out for that. Title is a play on lyrics from Coldplay's 'Yellow'.
> 
> Obviously, I do not own Tangled or anything associated with Disney!

 

 

She shouldn't believe in fairytales.

Her father had always told her that, whenever he found her pouring, wide-eyed, over the gold-backed, hard-cover story book that was larger than she was.

'You shouldn't be reading those, flower,' he had said, snapping the book shut so fast it nearly took her nose off. 'None of it's true. There is no true love's first kiss. There are no heroes. There are no happily ever afters, not in this world. This world is dark and selfish and cruel, and if it finds even the slightest ray of sunshine, it destroys it.'

He had taken the book away, replacing it instead with books on flowers, and star constellations, all things that he insisted were most definitely real. He had placed the book, along with its first kisses and happily ever afters and heroes, on the top shelf of the bookcase where he knew that she, with her stummbling short legs, would not be able to reach. But she _had_ reached it, the second her father had descended out of the tower on her rope of plaited gold, by pushing two chairs precariously together and tying them up with the same rope.

She had hidden the book underneath her bed, only bringing it out when her father wasn't home so she could lose herself in the stories uninterupted. She traced her fingertips (always stained by her paints, always itching to do more, to _be_ more) over the intricately inked pictures and whispered the words next to them like they were incantantions, and she wished.

She wished for kisses and for heroes and for happily ever afters.

The book came out less often as she grew older, the pages becoming less thumbed and the cover collecting more dust. More and more often, she found herself drawn to the other books instead and their colourful diagrams and mapped out starry skies.

As the years went by, she even came to wonder whether her father had been right after all.

Maybe she shouldn't believe in fairytales.

That, however, had all been before the thief with the satchel and Scottish accent to his voice had climbed in through her tower window and turned the world upside down.

 

 

 

Jemma tried to scream as she watched Fitz fall to the floor with a gasp of pain, one hand clutching his side, but the stretch of fabric pulled tight against her mouth muffled the cry in the same way it was soaking in the tears she could not stop herself from crying.

She strained forward as best as the ropes holding her would let her and tried to cry out again as Fitz rolled onto his side, his face contorted with shock and pain. As her father stepped out from behind him, a bloodied shard of glass in his hand, Jemma choked on her tears, her mind wrapping around only one coherent thought: _no no no no no no no no_.

_This wasn't supposed to happen_.

Her father ( _not_ her father, Jemma forced herself to remember. _He is_ not _my father._ ) observed the groaning boy in front of him with a look of such distant apathy that Jemma thought she might be sick.

'Now, do you see what you've done?' he demanded, flicking the piece of glass in her direction. A droplet of blood landed on Jemma's cheek and she flinched, feeling it like a brand upon her skin.

Her father made a little tutting noise and gave her a sly grin, as if they had some dark secret between them. 'Still, maybe it's better off this way. All of this can die with him.'

_No._ Jemma tried to moan the word through her gag as more tears welled up in her eyes. _No, no, this was never supposed to happen_.

Fitz had curled onto his side, both his hands now holding the wound at his waist, and he was making short, sharp gasping noises as he tried to breathe through the pain. Through her own panic, Jemma could see that his hands and his shirt were soaked through with blood.

How could he even _be_ here, lying there and dying in the middle of the tower that had been her home for eighteen years?

(No, not her home. This had never been her home, it had been her _prison_ and she it's captive. _Not my home_ , Jemma thought fiercely.)

It seemed impossible for him to be _here_ , where the last time she had seen him he had been sailing off into the night, his prize by his side and her left alone on the shore.

But then Jemma remembered who had shown up just before she had seen Fitz on his boat, and she felt the searing burn of realisation in her heart.

_Oh._

_Oh, no._

Everything he had ever told her had been a lie, hadn't it?

With another breathless sob, she desperately pulled forward on her bonds and felt the coarse rope cut through the skin on her wrists until the sudden wetness on her palms tod her that her own hands were covered in blood too.

Now, she would have both their blood on her hands.

'But as for us,' her father grunted, as he strode around behind Jemma and slit the ropes that had been holding her to the wall. 'We are going somewhere where _no one_ will ever find us again...'

As soon as she felt the ropes loosen from their clasp on the wall, Jemma begain to strain against them again, writhing from side to side, but her father's grip was tight and he tugged hard against the ropes, bringing her crashing down to the floor.

The wood scrapped hard against Jemma's cheek and, for a moment, the pain was enough to shock her into lying still, her next sob hitching in her throat.

From where she was lying, she could see Fitz. He was curled up into himself, his cheek pressed against the floor almost exactly the same as hers was so that their bodies seemed to mirror each other. As she stared at him, he looked up and met her gaze. His face was matted with tears but as he looked at her, Jemma could see a whole world in his eyes.

She saw pain. She saw love – _love_ , Jemma thought, and even bruised and covered in blood and with tears staining her face, she felt something inside her heart jump. She saw relief too.

The corners of Fitz's mouth lifted as he gave her a weak smile, wasting the precious little energy he must have left to reassure her, to let her know that everything was going to be alright. He was relieved, Jemma realised with a heart-wrenching ache deep in her gut, that even though he was going to die, she was going to live.

But what kind of life could she ever have if she had to live with the knowledge that she hadn't saved him?

She was jerked out of her stupour by her father, giving another harsh tug at her bonds with a disgruntled sigh, and suddenly all the pain and fear that Jemma had been feeling during the last few hours evaporated, turning instead into blinding rage.

With every ounce of strength left she had left, Jemma pulled towards Fitz.

'Enough!' her father grunted, yanking her hard towards the open trapdoor he had opened from the floor. Jemma had never seen that before. She had never known that had even _existed_ before. 'That is enough, Jemma. Stop it now!'

With every word, he hauled her further and further away from Fitz. With every word, Jemma could see that he was bleeding more and more.

She knew, from all the lifesize anatomical paintings she had copied out of the pictures in her books, that no one could stand to loose that much blood in such a short time.

The harder her father pulled, the more Jemma did too.

'Stop it!' The tone of her father's voice was as rough as his handling of her, and there was a dangerous edge to it as sharp as a knife. 'Jemma! Stop fighting me!'

Then, somehow, his hand slipped on the rope and he let go, letting Jemma fall back down again. She landed heavily on her side and, by some miraculous alignment of the stars, the gag around her mouth fell loose.

'No!'

Biting down hard on the fabric, Jemma yanked it down so it fell by her neck. From her position on the floor, she glared up at her father.

This man, whom she had loved and trusted and listened to her whole life long, whom she had been terrified of disobeying for just as long, was nothing, _nothing_ to her but a captor who had used her and now wanted her to abandon the only person she had ever met who cared about her.

'No,' she bit back, hissing the words out with as much fury as she could muster. 'No, I won't stop. I will _never_ stop. For every single minute for the rest of my life, I will keep on fighting you!'

Her father stared at her and Jemma stared fiercely back as his steely demeanour cracked and he was stunned into silence as, for the first time in her life, she told him no.

She turned her head back in Fitz's direction and saw that he was still watching her but his smile had faded, replaced by a tiny 'o' shape as she stared.

She had only known him for a day. Logically, Jemma knew that, and she also knew that _logically_ what she was about to do was one of the worst ideas she had ever had.

But the way she felt about Fitz seemed to defy all logic. It defied every single law about nature, and the patterns of the universe her father had ever made her read instead of her fairytales.

Love, Jemma thought, was not supposed to be logical. And, with that, the world became clearer than anything she had ever known.

This time, it was her turn to smile at Fitz.

'But,' she began carefully, unable to look away from him. 'I will. If you let me heal him.'

'No!' Fitz's cry of protest was much louder and far angrier than anything Jemma might have thought he could have produced. The fact that he was doing it for _her_ made her chest feel like it had swelled to twice it's normal size. 'No, Jemma, no, you can't!'

'If you let me do that for him,' Jemma spoke louder, trying to ignore the audible quiver in her voice, turning away from Fitz to her father. 'Then I will go with you. I will go wherever you want me to, _do_ whatever you want...'

' _No!_ '

'I'll stay with you.' Jemma tried to raise the brightness in her tone to gentle coaxing, despite how painfully hard her heart was beating in her chest. 'It will be you and me, just like it's always been. Just like you want it to be.'

She looked eagerly up at her father (her captor, her _kidnapper_ ) and watched a mist glaze over his eyes.

He was seeing the opportunity for him to take what he wanted, seeing the opportunity for him to have everything he had dreamed, regardless of the sacrifces that needed to be made along the way.

Seeing the slight touch of this madness she had never allowed herself to see in him before, Jemma shivered.

'I'll do whatever you want. Just, please...'

_Please_.

'Let me heal him.'

 

 

'Your hair is magic.'

'Well. Yes. Currently.'

'So, your hair is magic- wait, “currently”? What do you mean, “ _currently_ ”? Bloody hell, the clock's not going to strike midnight and you'll find that your hair's turned back into a regular length pony tail, is it?'

'What? No! No, that's not what I meant...Although, come to think of it, that is technically a possibility. And one I hadn't thought of before. But, no. That wasn't what I meant.'

'What did you mean, then?'

'We only call things magical because we don't understand them. Once we understand them, they aren't magic anymore because we have an explanation for why they work. I can't understand why my hair... _glows_ – and especially at the incantation of a particular childhood rhyme, which in itself feels incredibly random – hence, my hair is magic. But I'm hoping to understand why it does what it does one day. I've just never had the proper equipment to investigate back home.'

'You've really thought about this, haven't you?'

'Mmm. My father gave me a lot of science books when I was little.'

'Ah.' A pause. 'So...your hair _glows_? But only when you _sing_ to it?'

'Well, it- Didn't you hurt your hand in the cave?'

'What? Oh, um, yeah. It's not too deep and it's just about stopped bleeding now...'

'Give me your hand.'

'Why?'

'My hair, it doesn't just glow. It also...well, let me show you. Only, you have to promise not to faint again.'

'For the last time, I did not faint. I had ingested a great deal of salt water and my consitution is not designed to deal with...oh...OH...'

'...You see?'

'How did...I don't...you just...how?'

'I don't know. At first, I thought the follicles must be acting as a catalyst to macrophage and fibroblast activity, which would account for the sped-up healing time, and then the non appearance of scabs or scars from physical wounds. But then I realised that as an explanation that doesn't account for how it heals mental or internal ailments, so I'm back to square one.'

'It sure as hell doesn't look like macrophage and fibroblasts.'

'Oh? What does it look like then?'

'Well...sunshine, I suppose.'

'Oh.'

'…'

'…'

'How long has it been doing that, exactly?'

'All my life. That's why my father and I live where we do. When I was a baby, father says people were selfish, and that they tried to use me for their own gain – but I've always though they might have had the right idea about that. Imagine the medical possibilities there could be if this magic could be utilised somehow, maybe even mass produced. Think of how many people could be saved by what I can do. I've always wondered whether maybe _we're_ the selfish ones, keeping it locked away.'

'I don't think that's selfish.'

'You don't?'

'No. If people were trying to use you for their own good, then things might get violent. They could hurt you. And I...and your _father_ , I mean, he wouldn't have wanted that. He'd want to keep you safe.'

'I suppose.'

'I don't think you're selfish, Jemma. Not at all.'

'Thank you. I've...I've never told anyone that before.'

'Then I'm glad you told me. And it was a wonderfully appropriate thing to mention as we were both trapped in a cave full of rising water with no concievable way out.'

'It was, wasn't it?'

'Mm. Absolutely.'

'I suppose you can tell a lot about a person by what they say when they think they're about to die.'

'Oh, yes. Definitely.'

'…'

'…'

'So... _Leopold_ , then?'

A groan.

'Oh, _bloody_ hell.'

 

 

Her father cuffed him to the broken mirror in order to prevent him from following them and tied the knot twice over, so that the rope was biting into the skin of Fitz's wrist.

Jemma might have protested, had she not been far more concerned about the stab wound in his abdomen instead.

'Hey!' She dropped down to her knees beside him and instantly reached one hand out to cover the wound and the other to cup his cheek. 'It's okay, it's okay. I'm here.'

Fitz's skin was worryingly clammy under her touch, and an ugly shade of grey too. Jemma felt her stomach twist as she saw that he could barely flutter his eyelashes in response to her voice. Under her fingertips, she could still feel his blood slowly seeping away into the floorboards.

_No_.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered. 'I'm so, so sorry...'

'No...' In her arms, Fitz's head turned and he opened his eyes to look up at her, wide and panicked. 'No, Jemma, you can't...'

'I have to...'

' _No_! I meant what I said.' He was frowning with the effort it took him to speak. 'If you let him use you for...for his own gain...then you'll get hurt and I couldn't...I can't...'

She almost laughed then, a bitter exclaimation of disbelief at how, even now, he had an unwavering concern for her safety. Fitz was lying in a pool of his own blood and _dying_ , and he still wanted to protect her.

_Love_ , Jemma realised, and the thought hurt more than she could ever have imagined it would. _This is what love is_.

And she was about to lose it forever, unless he let her save him.

'Shut up,' she ordered, sniffing, and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze whilst still trying to be bossy. 'Just...hush, now.'

Carefully, she lifted up a coil of her hair and tried to press it to his wound, but Fitz's hand kept coming up, trying to push her away.

'Fitz, stop!'

Jemma could feel her tears return in frustration at his stubborn resistance to her help, even when his time was running out.

_Stupid boy, couldn't he_ see _?_

'Stop it! You have to let me...' She gulped, letting one hand drop from her hair to her face to streak away the tears blurring her vision. 'You have to let me be selfish.'

Fitz flinched, as if her words had hurt him somehow. She winced automatically in response, and loosened her hold on him in case she _had_ been hurting him by holding too tight.

_Just please. Don't let go_.

'Jemma, I _told_ you...you're not selfish.'

Jemma shook her head.

'I am,' she whispered, and despite the fact that she still had tears burning at the back of her throat, she smiled at him. 'Because I don't want to live in a world without you.'

Under her hands, she felt Fitz suck in a breath, and when he looked up at her, she saw that his eyes were shining with tears too. Jemma wished there was a way for her to capture the awed way he was looking at her, as if she was the last thing he was ever going to see and there was nothing more he needed.

She wished she could keep on staring into his eyes forever, just in case that ever had to come true.

Taking a deep breath, she lifted her hair again with shaking hands. 'Please. Let me do this.'

'Wait.'

Fitz's voice sounded so strong that she did what he asked, her hands still hovering in mid air.

He was staring at her and his face was still pale, but there was a new found intensity to his gaze and a ferocious determination in his eyes that made Jemma waver, feeling her heart flip over in her chest.

Fitz had taken her hand from the wound at his side and was holding it, his fingers rubbing in small, soothing circles on her palm, and with some kind of super human strength, he was lifting his other arm up towards her, bringing the rest of his body up off the ground. His hand was curled around as if he meant to stroke her cheek.

Feeling her tears prick her eyes again, Jemma closed her eyes and waited for the comfort of his touch.

But it never came.

Instead, she felt his hand leave hers and a pull around her hair tug her forward. She opened her eyes in surprise, just as Fitz brought the broken piece of glass around to slice through the back of her hair.

For a moment, the world around her shrunk.

It shrunk to a shattered piece of glass, the feel of a cool breeze tickling the back of her neck, and the blood curtling scream coming from her father's throat.

Everything slowed down.

And then, it all shifted back into focus.

Instantly, Jemma's hand went up to her head; where before there had been dozens of feet of thick golden hair, now it was shorn to her chin and, although she couldn't see it, she knew it must be the colour of hazelnuts.

This was because, curling its way around the circular room, the rest of her hair was changing colour too. As she watched, wide-eyed, Jemma saw the hair her father had been loving and protecting all her life lose its extraordinary sunshine glow and turn instead to an ordinary, dull brown.

Her father was hurring along the strands of hair, desperately trying to out run the brown to save the gold. He was gathering it up into his arms, frantically trying to lift it off the ground as if by getting it high enough the magic could be saved.

Of course, it couldn't.

He was crying as well, Jemma saw. Great, gulping, ugly sobs that came out of his mouth with the groan of a dying animal and the more she stared at him, the more she could see how taunt his face was growing, how grey his hair was turing and, even worse, the look of haunting despair in his eyes. All at once, the power he had been seeping off of her for years was leaving him.

Across the room, he found her face and Jemma felt her body tense as, for one last time, she saw his eyes beg for her help.

Then the window was behind him and, with another hollow scream, he fell.

Instinctively, Jemma found her arms reaching up towards him, towards the only parent she had ever know, as he tumbled out of the tower.

His silhouette passed through the frame of the window just as the first rays of the morning sunlight began to streak their way through.

 

 

'I have something for you.'

'You do? What...Wait, is that my-?'

'-Your satchel, yes it is. I know I told you that I hid it somewhere you would never find it, but truthfully I've had it with me for, um, quite a while now. I just didn't give it to you.'

'But how did you...hold on, where the _hell_ have you been keeping it? What, did you have it tucked inside your hair or something?'

'Fitz, is this _really_ the time to be discussing the logistics of my magical hair?'

'...Good point.'

'Anyway, I should have given it back to you earlier. And I'm sorry. But the truth is...I was afraid.'

'What on earth were you afraid of?'

'I was afraid that once I gave it back to you, you would leave. And I didn't...I didn't want you to go.'

'Jemma, I would _never_ have done that to you. Ever.'

'I know. I know that now, and I'm not scared anymore, which is why I want you to take it back. Here, Fitz. Take it.'

'Wait...here, just put it down for a moment. I actually have something for you too.'

'Really? For me?'

'Hey now, don't go getting too excited. Here look, it's just a...'

'A lantern? You...you got me a lantern?'

'Yeah. I bought it, actually.'

'You _bought_ a lantern?'

'Yes, I bought it, bloody hell, You said you wanted to understand how they worked, so I thought after you'd seen one up close maybe we could set it off...together?'

'I'd...I'd like that. Yes, please.'

'Alright. So, if you just turn it over...see that metal structure?'

'Yes. And that's where you light the candle, isn't it? So that as it heats the air inside the lantern, the density decreases, meaning that when you lift the lantern into the air it flies!'

'Yeah, and the metal part is also useful because it secures the candle in place so that it can't move about when it's in the air...'

'...and won't set fire to the fabric of the sides!'

'Exactly!'

'…'

'…'

'Hey...Jemma, what's wrong? Why are you crying?'

'It's just...I've spent so long wondering about this. I've spent so much of my life wanting to discover the lights in the sky, and the light they produce, and how it all _works_. And now...now I know. And it's all _so_ simple.'

'It is, I suppose. When you think about it.'

'But what...what happens now?'

'Well...That's the best part, I guess. Now, you get to find something else to discover.'

'Oh.'

'Jemma?'

'Mm?'

'Why are you crying now?'

'It's incredible. How something so simple can be so _beautiful_.'

'…'

'…'

'Do you think it's heated up enough now, Fitz?'

'Seeing as the bottom of it is starting to burn my hand, yeah, I'd say so.'

'Do you want to let it go, then? Together?'

'Yeah. Together.'

'…'

'…'

'Oh, _Fitz_...it's so beautiful.'

'Yeah. Yeah, it is.'

 

 

As the rays of sunlight began to climb higher and higher up the walls of the tower, Jemma turned back to Fitz.

'No.'

He had slumped back down to the floor, his arms lying limply at his sides with his eyes closed and, though she might not have thought it was possible, he was paler too.

_Deathly_ pale.

_No_. _Oh, no_.

'Fitz, no!' She crouched over him, desperately stroking his cheeks with her thumbs, as if the touch of her skin could rub the warmth back into them. 'No, no, no, look at me. Please look at me!'

He gave a low groan from the back of his throat but managed to open his eyes a crack to look at her. The blue of his eyes had softened to the colour of the midnight sky.

'Jemma...'

With a sob, Jemma tipped her head forward so that it was resting against his cold forhead. Maybe, a part of her thought desperately, if she could press as much of herself to him as she could he could not be taken away from her.

'What did you _do_ , why did you...I could have...'

'He'd have hurt you,' Fitz murmured in her ear, his words slurring together with the effort it was taking him to speak. 'And I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd allowed that to happen.'

Jemma sobbed again, a hiccup in the middle of it turning it into an ugly gurgle instead and she drew back from him abruptly, sucking in a deep breath to halt her tears.

'No.' She shook her head, and its new crop of brown curls swug from side to side wildly. 'No, no, this can still work.'

Sniffling, she made a grab for Fitz's right hand and brought it up to clamp it firmly against her head so it was covered by her hair. 'It can still work, it _will_ , I can make it work. Everything's going to be...'

She faltered, as she felt Fitz's fingers start to stroke her hair softly, and Jemma's eyes blurred again so she could hardly make out his face anymore.

'...going to be alright, everything is...going to be...alright...' she repeated thickly, blinking furiously.

Through her tears, she saw Fitz smile. It was the slightest movement, his lips quirking upwards and his mouth opening ever so slightly so he could give her the kindest smile she had ever seen.

'Jemma...' he croaked again, and somehow Jemma knew with the most painful of certainties that he was trying to tell her goodbye.

_No_.

'I found something,' she whispered. 'Something new that I want to discover.'

In her arms, Fitz's eyes opened a little wider.

'Oh, yeah?'

'Yeah.'

'What's that then?'

Jemma smiled back at him, and with her free hand, she let her fingers run gently through the rumpled curls of his hair.

She may have thought the lantern sky had been beautiful, but it didn't even begin to compare to him. Nothing in the world could ever compare to him.

'You,' she whispered, 'and me.'

Fitz gave a raspy chuckle. 'Funny that,' he muttered. 'That was what I wanted to discover too.'

Jemma gave a burst of laughter that turned into a ragged sob.

'Then stay with me,' she begged. Desperately, she pressed the side of her face into his hand, squeezing it tighter to her. 'Stay with me, and we'll figure it out together, I promise. Please, Fitz...'

Slowly, she began to feel his hand slip down her hair and its grip loosen.

There was still the faintest shadow of a smile on Fitz's face as his eyelids flickered shut, and Jemma bent forwards again, clutching her hand held inside his over his chest.

_Please._

With the smallest sigh, Fitz exhaled. Underneath her fingers, Jemma felt his heart stop beating.

Inside her chest, she felt her own heart break.

'Please...' she croaked helplessly, even though she knew it was too late.

He was gone.

_No. No, this can't be happening._

Jemma's body sagged forward and she felt her shoulders start to shake uncontrollably, as the tears she had been unable to hold back began to fall again.

She felt them on her face as they trickled down her nose and she tasted the salt on her lips and the bitter emptiness that came with the taste.

'Please,' Jemma whispered one last time, as one teardrop rolled down her chin and quivered there for a moment.

And then, it dropped.

 

 

'Just stay here. I'll be back, I promise.'

'Where are you going?'

'Nowhere. I just...there's something I have to do. Don't worry. Really.'

'But...you are coming back, aren't you?'

'Of course I am, yeah. I'll come right back to you.'

'Promise?'

'Jemma, I can promise you this. I will always come back to you.'

 

 

There was light everywhere.

It was a deep and golden light that was slowly filling up the tiny tower room like sunshine, except this light wasn't coming from the open window.

It was coming from Fitz.

Or, more specifically, it was coming from the spot on his cheek where her teardrop had fallen.

Jemma sat back on her heels, stunned, as she watched the tendrils of light spiral off of Fitz's skin to wind themselves across the room. They looked like petals unfurling from a flower she had read about in a book as a child, a flower that only opens at the break of dawn. But these petals were not made of cellulose. These ones were made purely of light.

Most of the beams appeared to be congregating on one particular spot – the deep gash in Fitz's side which, even as Jemma watched, began to glow brighter and brighter until she could not look directly at it.

The warmth in the room was steadily rising too; the tears on her cheeks had already dried and she could feel the heat beginning to rise from Fitz's body to radiate through her fingers.

The light. The warmth. All of it was as hauntingly familiar as a lullaby.

With a shock that registered through her whole body, Jemma realised what was happening.

It was _healing_ him.

Her heart began to beat faster as the light started to rise, her eyes growing wide as it billowed out her skirt and tousled her hair. She stared at it, at the way it was wrapping itself around Fitz's body and breathing life back into his limbs, unwilling to take her eyes away from him less he disappear forever.

It was only when the light surged outwards from Fitz with a puff that it grew so blinding Jemma had to shut her eyes with a gasp.

And then, as quickly as it had appeared, it stopped.

 

 

 

'I will _always_ come back to you.'

 

 

Jemma opened her eyes one at a time.

The blinding golden light was gone, replaced by the hazy morning sun streaming in through the window, fractured by the curtains so that it caught the dust particles drifting through the air in its path.

With shaking hands and her heart in her mouth, Jemma looked down.

The gash in Fitz's side was gone, leaving only the bloodstains on his clothes and her hands as a reminder that it had been there at all. In wonder, Jemma ran her fingers over the place where it had been and found that his skin was warm to her touch.

Scrambling to her knees, she leant over him again and let one hand rest carefully on his chest, hardly daring to hope. Against her palm, she felt his heart beat.

'Fitz?'

It was a question, but at the same time, it was a prayer.

Fitz gave a small groan, and his chest swelled as he sucked in a breath.

Quickly, Jemma shuffled back a little way to let him get some air, but before she could get too far, Fitz's hand had come up to hold hers over his chest. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

'I think...I think you might have been wrong in your deductions.'

'Wrong?' Jemma was torn between being elated and a little offended. 'How could I have been wrong?'

'I don't think it was your hair that was magic,' Fitz whispered, and he opened his eyes into hers. 'I think it was just you.'

A bubble of delighted laughter rose in Jemma's chest and as Fitz's mouth widened into a broad grin, she could not help her own do the same. It stretched so far it hurt her cheeks, but she didn't care, how _could_ she care?

Leopold Fitz was alive. Because of _magic_.

Carefully, she put her hands under his arms and helped him up so he could sit with his back propped against the wall. Once she was satisfied he was comfortable, Jemma angled her body against his so she could cup his face in her hands.

The warmth and colour seemed to be creeping back into his skin with every second she looked at him, the strength the injury had seeped out of him slowly returning. Jemma exhaled a small sigh of relief.

Fitz was watching her as she examined his face, his hands holding her gently at her waist so she could balance. Shifting her gaze, Jemma looked down to meet his eyes.

She saw joy first of all – pure, unriddled joy that, although she couldn't be sure, might have been a reflection of the same feeling in her own eyes. She saw gratitude too, and faith, and then, behind all of those but shining through them all as bright as day, she found what she had been looking for.

There it is, Jemma thought happily.

_Love_.

'What are you up to?' Fitz asked her teasingly. 'Discovering me?'

'Mmm.' Jemma gave a contended noise in agreement, as she began to feel her forehead pull down to meet his. It felt like something as natural as gravity. 'Something like that.'

It was almost as if her words had been an invitation to him, because Fitz widened his eyes and tilted his face up like a flower seeking the sun's light. As the distance between them grew narrower and narrower, Jemma took a deep breath and closed her eyes to kiss him.

It was soft to start with, the merest touching of her lips to his and a quiet exhalation of breaths against each other's skin. But when Jemma's hand crept around to hold the back of his neck and Fitz responded for like, wrapping his arm around her waist to guide her across into his lap, the kiss became firmer and stronger.

It became the most wonderful thing Jemma had ever discovered.

As she tipped her head to one side, her nose nudging against Fitz's so he could deepen the kiss, Jemma wondered if it was possible that the golden light could still be lingering under his skin.

Because now, as if the light had been threads of gold binding the two of them together, she could have sworn she felt it begin to spread through her too.

 

 

She shouldn't believe in fairytales.

That was what she had always been told, by the man who been her captor rather than the father she had believed him to have been.

She shouldn't believe in fairytales, because none of them were _real_.

(But of course, _he_ had been the one who had never been real, hadn't he?)

She had never wanted to truly believed him, though there had been times when she had come dangerously close. It had taken her eighteen years before she finally discovered that he had been wrong all along.

There _were_ such things as fairytales.

There was such a thing as a true love's first kiss – she knew this because she had had one, at the top of a tower surrounded by the crumbled walls of a past life and bathed in the sunlight welcoming her into a new one.

There were such things as heroes too; she had found the most unlikely of them in a Scottish thief with a crown in his satchel and sarcastic quips on his lips. She had found a hero who had loved her so deeply he would rather have died than let her get hurt.

She had become a hero too, when she hadn't allowed that to happen.

And standing in a palace bedroom in front of the crib that had been her own as a baby, with a golden band on the fourth finger of her left hand and her husband standing behind her with his hands clasped softly over her swelling stomach, Jemma found that there was even such a thing as living happily ever after.

Fairytales most certainly existed. And she should know.

After all, she was living in one.

 

 


End file.
